Hike leader Monika Hoerl leads members of the Heartland Chapter of the Florida Trail Association on a hike through an oak hammock on the Orange Loop at the Tenoroc Fish Management Area. Florida State Senator Paula Dockery was among the hikers. (Photo: Kim Fatica)

The Tenoroc Fish Management Area was a busy host Saturday morning. There were fishermen lined-up with jon boats along the road. The shooting area was at capacity. Boy Scouts worked on an Eagle Scout project at the main office. Thirty Florida Trail Association hikers waited for a special guest to arrive at Picnic Lake.

It was only 8:30 a.m. The grass was still damp in the parking lot and a fairly good number of hikers were preparing to hit the trail.

It had been two years since I last came out to Lakeland’s northeast green space, which back then wasn’t so green in at least one spot. Phosphate mining had stripped the land of its natural beauty, but a major reclamation effort had been well under way with bulldozers and excavators disturbing the peaceful landscape. It was the FWC’s version of “Extreme Home Makeover” and FWC biological scientist Danon Moxley was about to explain it to me when gasps of “bobcat!” could be overheard.

Turns out Moxley’s colleague, Barbara Gugliotti, the FWC’s Education Coordinator, said she had seen a bobcat earlier.

“Yeah, this morning, just about a hundred yards down from the drive in here to the Picnic…just bookin’ it across the road!”

A bobcat may be a common Tenoroc tenant, but seeing one never gets old, explained Gugliotti. The bar had been set for the hike, an abbreviated four-mile trek on the Orange Loop trail that would take us past the once-barren area I remember seeing. It was hard to imagine what the area looked like now. Moxley finally gets to answer my first question.

“Basically, we’re trying to re-plumb Tenoroc. It’s old mine, so the land has been impacted–drastically. And it was reclaimed, to some extent. Now what we’re trying to do is to get the hydrology right. That’s the first step in our plan…habitat layer on top of that, and then the public use on top of that. We got the hydrology right, got the water where it needs to go, get it back in to the Peace River and through Tenoroc.”

We get interrupted again. This time it’s hike organizer Monika Hoerl, her Germanic accent commanding attention. Our guest is here and it’s time to start the hike. One learns that when Hoerl speaks, people listen, but that’s because she oversees 18 miles of trails at Tenoroc as a member of the Heartland Chapter of the Florida Trail Association. You have to respect anyone with silver hair that can hike 18 miles.

She took a moment to tell me how special Tenoroc is to Lakeland.

“Tenoroc is surrounded by Lakeland. It’s like Central Park in New York. Lakeland is getting bigger and bigger, more and more people…it’s peaceful, you can go on long hikes, you can just sit and watch the animals and I think it’s great for Lakeland to have something like this.”

Hike organizer Monika Hoerl gives Natalie Hall and Florida State Senator Paula Dockery an update on all that has been done to the trail system at Tenoroc. Hall, a native New Zealander, finds Florida parks to be among the best in the world. (Photo: Kim Fatica)

With Florida State Senator Paula Dockery as the guest of honor, Hoerl attributes half of the large turnout to Dockery’s participation. “You know how we worked on this trail to have it in good shape,” she says with excitement, “I never have this many people to come out…I usually get 10, 15 people on a hike, and that’s a lot. I think we’re up to 30 now.”

After lecturing everyone about proper hydration and the purpose of having a designated “sweep” (last person in a trek who makes sure no person is left behind), Hoerl leads everyone out of the grassy parking area and on to the Orange Loop trail. About a hundred yards in to the hike, she gets everyone together for a group picture. Pleasant strangers hand me their cameras, smartphones and Flip recorders to capture the moment for prosperity. Even the dogs along for the hike seem to understand how big of a deal this is. They sit patiently while I snap off pictures.

One of the smartphones was Dockery’s trusty BlackBerry, with an imaging sensor that had to be worn out by the time we finished the hike. Dockery took pictures everywhere. She has supported improvements at Tenoroc and for the preservation of green spaces throughout Florida. In a down economy, with tourism, agriculture, and housing all struggling, she defended having a property like Tenoroc in Lakeland.

“There’s a great value to our quality of life,” she stated. “Tourism kind of shifted from the tourist attractions like Disney and Universal–because people couldn’t really afford them–to nature-based tourism. So it was our parks and our natural areas like FWC manages that kept Florida’s economy going and brought a different type of tourism to the state of Florida.”

Birders and nature photographers got to dust off their lenses to get some great looks at Tenoroc's wetlands tenants. (Photo: Kim Fatica)

Beyond that, she says her thrills come when people discover these natural areas for the first time. They become deeply enamored and return for more. “Nothing makes me happier than to see somebody who has never enjoyed these kind of areas witness it for the first time and fall in love.”

Our brief hike continued along its sandy, grassy, and sometimes rutty path, finally opening up to the wetlands, our designated halfway stop. Birders with binoculars and long-lensed cameras took in the glory of the moment. I was amazed to see tall grasses and scrub, waterfowl and wildflowers where dirt and dozers had been just two years ago. Dockery called out my name specifically avoiding confusion with her assistant, also named Kim.

“Kim! Ledger Kim, come here! Look! See…over there, in the shadow…”

Pointing out over the scrub and towards the water, a large gator stealthily trolled for its next meal, possibly a black-bellied whistling duck, teal, ibis, stork, or any number of winged waders. Moxley points out to the hikers that more waterfowl continue to find the newly-formed watershed. “Oh, they’ll spread the word,” he says.

Moxley continued to detail the development of the area during the half-hour break, indicating that redeveloping the land is like raising a child. The wetland is in its teens, with planted trees and other herbaceous vegetation growing like “gangbusters”. Down the road he is hoping to eventually bring a blue trail through the area, with kayaking and canoeing as part of the plan.

Hoerl is holding court among a cluster of Caesar’s Weeds, informing her peers that the flowers are lovely, but its prickly fruit can be an irritating nuisance. She then moves on to some yellow Rattlebox, a tall-growing flower that resembles Snapdragon. When its long seed pods dry up, she says, they produce the telltale rattling sound it’s known for. Botany lessons over, she hustles everyone back on the trail.

At this point along the hike the early morning sun has had time to warm the area and I was grateful to be moving in to more wooded areas. A rutty area of the trail among some pines causes Hoerl to take note that there is more trail work to be done after heavy rains in the area helped create the mess. Her devotion is tireless and impressive. There’s always something to be done, she said.

As we enter an oak hammock, hike sweep Pam Williams comments that she doubts most youngsters would know what an oak hammock is. Gugliotti, the FWC educator, notes that the Florida Youth Conservation Centers Network she helps manage works hard to entice more youth to get out and enjoy nature. Area partners work with the FWC to help support a wide range of youth-centered outdoor programs.

A rutty section of the Orange Loop trail at Tenoroc will be tended to by Florida Trail Association volunteers. (Photo: Kim Fatica)

We are almost back to the grassy parking area when I overhear Dockery and one of the hikers quietly discussing politics, a subject I was determined to avoid. Dockery’s 16-year service to the state will end November 6, by her choice, leaving a void in the state senate. As a Republican, she was one of the few who had an interest in parks and natural areas. Her involvement in supporting environmental issues began back in 1998 when she was made chairman of the Environmental Protection Committee. She told me that she got her colleagues on board by hosting legislative park tours that got them out to parks and green spaces, sometimes with an overnight stay. That, she maintains, often gave them a better appreciation for Florida’s resources.

Her move to chair the Criminal Justice Committee and her looming retirement from politics have softened Republican support for environmental efforts. Dockery says she plans to become more involved in that area after the first of the year, starting with the creation of a Citizens Support Organization at Colt Creek. As far as Republican support goes she said, “We need some heroes, and right now in the senate we have Thad Altman of Brevard County.”

Politics aside, Dockery emphasized, “(We) just need to kind of remind people that they have a responsibility to protect, conserve, and restore these areas for future generations.”

About This Blog

Kim Fatica is a marketing professional and former Emmy Award-winning television photojournalist and operations manager originally from Cleveland, Ohio. He’s also a lifelong volunteer with the Boy Scouts of America, where he’s been involved with the program since he was a Cub Scout in 1970. He earned his Eagle Scout rank in 1976 and continued on in service as an adult leader, currently serving as an assistant scoutmaster for Troop 22 in Tampa.

He lived his dream of backpacking through the Sangre de Cristo mountain range with his son, Noah, at the Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimarron, New Mexico. The 12-day trek during the summer of 2012 took them on a memorable 80-mile journey that went through areas near the historic Santa Fe Trail.

Kim earned his undergraduate degree in Journalism and Mass Communications from Bowling Green State University and holds a master’s degree in Business Administration from the Florida Institute of Technology.